


just like my father, just like my mother

by lqbys



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dysfunctional Family, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, me gently taking every common op headcanons and crushing them to bits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:27:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24065827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lqbys/pseuds/lqbys
Summary: Luffy’d end up just like Ace, and Zoro didn’t want that—ever.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy/Roronoa Zoro
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	just like my father, just like my mother

“You’re late.”

Zoro wasn’t. For once, he wasn’t late, whether it’d been by design or entirely out of his control, but Luffy’s concept of punctuality was a scary thing. Which, Zoro’d come to realize, only included him most of times. Or perhaps always. He never knew. Still: he flashed a peace sign as a hello, and took his sweet time kicking off his Docs to a corner of the room.

The lights were on, even during the day. The living room was chaos in the form of worn-out furniture and littered junk all over the floor. It wasn’t anything fancy or stylish: spending time here felt like a fever dream made of shitty patterns and colors which should never be associated. It was a fucking challenge, some mental strength test of a sort, a dare to anyone who wasn’t born and raised a Monkey to linger around for longer than twenty minute a day. And Zoro was proud to say he’d been around for way longer than that, and it had, just _had_ to mean something.

“Oi,” Luffy said.

Zoro looked up. Luffy was sprawled on the huge mustard-colored (and surely stained) sofa, legs spread wide and wearing his usual hibernation outfit. Sports shorts, oversized sweatshirt, and his favorite pair of Supernatural socks. By his side, taking lesser space and in similar attire, Ace, probably nursing a hangover by the look of his face. They were watching something on the TV, but Zoro couldn’t tell what from there.

Luffy’s voice rose again. “Could you get any fucking slower?”

He was scowling, lips turned down. Zoro’s moved on their own, stretching a little, but he made no move to hurry, even when Luffy opened his arms expectantly.

“I brought _tamales_ ,” Zoro said, lifting the plastic bag in his right hand to show proof.

Zoro figured Luffy'd refuse food, so he left the bag on top of some pretty wooden table that wasn’t here last time he was over. He didn’t think there was any particular reason why Luffy stole this one, because there never was: Luffy’s hands had will of their own. Juvie couldn't change that. Zoro dropped his keys, phone and rings on there too but kept his cigs in the back pocket of his jeans for good measure, entirely aware of Luffy’s eyes drilling holes on the back of his head. He finally turned, finally facing a sour-faced Luffy, and he got three good steps that smoothed the angry lines around Luffy’s eyes right before he stopped.

“I will literally kill you,” Luffy warned.

“But the _tamales_ —”

Zoro ducked down right before some sharp looking objet met his head as he turned around and trotted back to the table. He grabbed the bag, turned around fast enough to give himself whiplash, and sprinted back to the couch. He didn’t give any warning before crashing against Luffy’s body, but much to his surprise, Luffy only broke into fits of bubbly laughter, arms snaking around his body the second he had him close enough.

Zoro’s lips found the spot right under Luffy’s ear, where he said, “Sorry I’m late, even though I literally ain’t.”

Luffy rested his chin on top of his head, not bothering with any kind of reply except a little hum of approval. He smelled of berries, weed, and that one aftershave he wouldn’t ever tell him the name of no matter how many times Zoro asked. ‘A man gotta have some secrets’ or some bullshit like that. Zoro shifted from his lap, sitting properly by his side to dig within the bag. Luffy had his mouth full of _tamal_ before Zoro had time to unwrap his own.

“Want some?” he proposed Ace, whose eyes cut his way slowly.

“There coke in it for me?”

Zoro cringed. “Jesus. No.”

“Then I don’t want it,” Ace simply said, then adds almost to himself as he looks away, “that’s the whole fucking purpose of these useless, tasteless fucking things.”

“Ace, you _dumb_ shit,” Luffy growled.

Zoro rolled his eyes. There was no use pointing out every prejudicial shit Ace could say every once in a while even in front of a half-Mexican Luffy. Old habits died the hardest, and so did family traditions. But Luffy never bothered—didn't give a shit—so Zoro ate his cokeless _tamal_ wordlessly with his head on Luffy’s shoulder and crumbs on shirt. Long before he knew it, his lids grew heavy, the sounds of explosions and grotesque yelling coming from the TV merely a distraction. Luffy must’ve sensed it, his smile a tiny thing against his forehead where he left two kisses.

Zoro didn’t wake up from his slumber before it got dark and quiet. He tried to move, but found himself unable to—Luffy’s grip around his waist was vice-like, his head hidden against his neck now that they were laying down.

“Don’t. He’s out.”

Zoro, drowsy and blurry-eyed, glanced up.

Ace, still on the far-end of the couch, hadn’t moved at all, his thin face illuminated by the TV’s white glow. Bathing in the faint synthetic lights in a room full of darkness, he looked just like his brother—only older, worn-out, colder, the same heavy bags underneath their evasive eyes.

Zoro, in his half-consciousness haze, felt terrified.

In a few years, Luffy’d look as battered and lifeless as Ace.

They’d fall to different demons, but in the end, blood would tell, and it’d be no sweet tale. Genetics, something in the air of the living room, or being born and raised a Monkey without ever knowing what it truly meant. Zoro’s free hand travelled up to touch Luffy’s cheek, thumb pushing gently against the scar underneath his eye.

“Yeah,” he breathed out.

Luffy’d end up just like Ace, and Zoro didn’t want that—ever. 

Zoro closed his eyes when Luffy shifted very subtly against him, pressing his face just a bit more against his chest. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, but it couldn’t have been much—Luffy didn’t sleep, and if he did, it’d never last long. His insomnia competed olympics against his brother’s narcolepsy, but not today, and Zoro wondered if a full belly did that to a kid who hated eating with all his guts.

Ace moved, careful and quiet as if not to disturb Luffy.

“Fucking _tamales_ ,” he muttered, looking down on his brother’s passed out figure with what one could mistake as tenderness. And maybe, just maybe, just this once, it was. “Knocked him out real good.”

Ace let the TV on when he left. Zoro wondered about tenderness between brothers who didn’t know how to be brothers some more until he fell asleep to the sound of Luffy’s heartbeat.


End file.
